5 Surefire Ways To Fix The Broken Expendables Franchise

This weekend, The Expendables 3 crashed and burned, collecting a dismal $16.2 million, by far the weakest opening in the series. This franchise has been something of an institution, giving fans a chance to see some of the members of the Action Hero Hall Of Fame in one place. But the novelty of this seems to have worn off: the second film was considerably weaker than the first domestically, and this new film might not even cross $50 million stateside. And while the movies have never been a critical darling, this one garnered the weakest reviews yet.

You could say some of that comes from the PG-13 rating, which kept away older action diehards. Or that the movie's giant piracy leak damaged the final tallies. But the fans just didn't show up to a film that added Wesley Snipes, Mel Gibson and Harrison Ford to the ever-growing roster of characters, three legends with serious box office pedigree. The formula seemed simple at the beginning, but it's clear from audience dissatisfaction that it's not working. Time to change it up, and drastically. Here are five ways to fix The Expendables.

Shorten The Roster

Just how many Expendables are there? The cast for this new film was so massive that they needed two whole Expendables teams. There were so many Expendables that you couldn't even fit them on one poster. Audiences know these movies are overstuffed because of the first film, which promised the involvement of Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the ads, only for them to pop up in a single dialogue scene that played like a lazy Marvel Easter Egg.

The point of these films is to highlight the best and the brightest in action history. So, yes, you might want to add a Randy Couture or a Ronda Rousey in there to spice it up, and give a boost to an as-yet-underdeveloped action star. And it's very cool that, despite no real action credits to his name, the Expendables franchise turned Terry Crews into a heavyweight of sorts, even if it meant he was suddenly too big to show up in the entire middle portion of The Expendables 3. But Jackie Chan nailed it – what's the point in joining all these actors when they barely have any screentime and maybe one or two lines? They were famous for being stars – they're the main course, not ingredients you splice into a great meal. A good five or six will do, specifically genuine action legends.